


Lavellan's Choice

by NebulousMistress



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Body Horror, Canon Divergance, Emprise du Lion, Gen, I am a HORRIBLE PERSON, Mild torture, Red Lyrium, Shrine of Dumat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-05-26 13:22:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15001775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress
Summary: The Red Templars know the terrain better than Sahrnia's old maps can show. The Red Templars blended in with the red lyrium too well. There was no way to expect the ambush.All excuses for why Inquisitor Lavellan found himself prisoner of the Red Templars.





	1. Red Captors

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I am a horrible person. What makes it worse is that I'm playing this particular Inquisitor _right now_ and I reeeeeally want this to happen. Actually happen. Yes I know it's bad. I know why it's bad. I still want it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corypheus said to keep watch for the Inquisition and its elven Inquisitor. The Inquisitor was to be taken alive or dead, didn't matter which.
> 
> 'Do whatever you wish with the rest of him but keep the Anchor intact' were Samson's orders.
> 
> Broad orders where Red Templars are involved.

The first thing Lavellan knew was cold.

Then pain.

He shut his eyes against the bright light that seemed to come from within his own head, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. He groaned and tried to turn away from the bright but there was something wrong. Something terribly wrong.

He went still as he remembered. The ambush in the canyons above Emprise du Lion. The old maps were useless when faced with the towering growths of red lyrium that formed new canyons and choke points in what the map assured him were open forests and fields. He'd followed his usual strategy: spot the ambush, fade into the shadows, creep behind the nearest archer, poison his weapons, and then strike with twin daggers to assassinate the target. The first death was the prearranged signal for Cassandra or Blackwall or Iron Bull to unleash their challenge into the enemy ranks to distract them from the fact that they were already a man down. Then Dorian would split the field with a wall of fire. Or Solas would lay mines of ice. Or Vivienne would light up the field with arching bolts of lightning. They each had their own preferred chaos. Sometimes Cole would join Lavellan in the initial strike, other times Sera or Varric would hide in the back and pick off stragglers and strategists with hails of arrows.

That was not how this ambush went.

The Red Templars had a behemoth this time. Lavellan blamed the red lyrium maze, the canyons and towers formed by unnatural warm crystal that melted the snow around it. He would have sworn that was a wall when he passed it a moment before. But instead the wall moved, was once a man, and now had one gigantic maul where its hand once had been.

That explained the pain in his head and the lights that flashed even behind closed eyes. He must have been hit by the behemoth's opening swing. The last thing he heard was his name shouted in fear somewhere far away.

And now he opened his eyes to peer past the blinding light to take in his situation.

The bars of a cage greeted his gaze. It wasn't a small cage, not one of those dog-sized cages shems sometimes put elves into in order to humiliate them during the long wagon ride to a waiting Tevinter market. This was one of the wagon-sized cages he'd seen before, had picked a few of the locks to let the imprisoned villagers go free.

Unfortunately he would not be picking locks to get out of this one. His hands were bound behind him, his wrists felt like they were clamped in iron. Worse, he felt the stiff leather mitts encasing his hands, leaving his fingers little space to move. Mage-bindings. Even if he had his daggers they'd be useless to him with his hands so encased and locked behind his back. He tried to stand up but couldn't, not with the iron cuffs chained to the bars of the cage.

Well, shit.

His wyvern-scale armor was gone as was his wolf-fur cloak, leaving him shivering in the silks he wore under his armor. “Should have let Dagna use the wool,” he muttered aloud.

And then he heard it. The Red Templars were nearby. Watching. Laughing.

They thought they'd won.

But Lavellan was alone. He hoped that meant the others escaped.

*****

Cassandra howled in rage and slammed her fist into the rock wall. The icy chill of the winter's depth dulled the pain even as the others glanced up at her then back to their own musings.

“I should not have left him,” Cassandra said.

“Yeah, we tried,” Sera said defensively.

“The ambush was unanticipated,” Solas said. “The idea that a behemoth of such size could move so quietly is still strange to imagine.”

The three of them poured over the maps of Emprise du Lion loaned to them by the local village. The maps were out of date, they didn't take into account the ice caves or the red lyrium growths. One such growth formed a canyon around what was once a wide and open road, cutting them off from each other when the behemoth struck. Now Inquisitor Lavellan was gone, captured by the Red Templars. They were unlikely to kill the Inquisitor outright, not with Corypheus's obsession. More likely they'd hold the Inquisitor captive before transporting him to Corypheus himself to be, what, killed? Made an example of?

“We must press on,” Cassandra said. She cracked her knuckles, resetting the joints and feeling the pain of the stone's resistance fade. “We have a limited time before the Red Templars decide what to do with their captive.”

Sera giggled and raided the potion supply, stuffing her belt with tonics and grenades. Several grenades buzzed. “I've got arrows,” she offered.

Solas took a deep breath and picked up his staff. “They'll have him in Suledin Keep by now,” he said. “Come, we must extract Blackwall from the Warden ruins. We will need his sword and shield for this.”

“Then let's go.” Cassandra lifted her shield and they headed out.

*****

Lavellan had never wanted to spit out a wad of elfroot before.

“I want him bolstered,” the Red Templar ordered. He must be the local commander given the others jumped to obey him. “If the Master wants to kill the Inquisitor himself I don't want to have to explain why he's already dead.”

The hissing of the crystalline monster beside him almost sounded like words. “And... if the... Massster... wantsss him... untouched?”

Lavellan had a bad feeling about this. He knew the stories of how shems tortured elves for sport and amusement until they escaped with nothing to hide the shame of their cruel use. He wasn't naive enough to believe he'd be spared that fate simply because he was male. Still, he refused to simply lay down and accept it. He was no 'good little knife-ear'. He swallowed the elfroot leaves, their cooling strength making him shiver. “Do your worst,” he dared. “Corypheus will have to take the anchor from my cold dead hand and he knows it.”

The Red Templar leaned down, baring yellow teeth that gleamed red from the man's own internal glow. “You put on a brave face, elf,” he sneered. “You know not what you invite.”

Lavellan stared back into the man's red eyes, that disdainful stare he'd learned from Vivienne and Dorian. It was the one that made Cole stop speaking to him for a week and cowed Emperor Gaspard into succumbing to blackmail. “I have a pretty good idea,” he said.

It did not have the intended effect. Instead the Red Templar grinned with delight. “Yes,” he mused. “I think you're bolstered enough. You'll survive. You'll survive a long time, I think.” He stood up and called for the others to hold the Inquisitor still and to bring the draught.

It took a moment for Lavellan to realize what this draught might be. He struggled against his captors but with hands bound behind him, the anchor quiet and useless without a rift to command, with the augmented strength of the Red Templars...

They held him on his knees in the snow, his chest thrust out, his arms held tight behind him. Rough crystal-studded hands held his head still as the Red Templar brought a glass vial of something that glowed ominously red.

“No,” Lavellan whispered. “No, nonononono...”

Hands forced his jaws open.

“Oh yes, Inquisitor,” the Red Templar said. “Believe me when I say there is far worse ahead of you than simple death.”

Lavellan believed him. And then the the vial opened and the nightmare began.

*****

“This isn't working,” Blackwall shouted.

“And that is my fault?!” Cassandra demanded. “I don't see you wading into an ambush!”

“And yet you've both come to rely on the Inquisitor to do just that,” Solas mused, a little too loud to be polite.

“Shut up!” Both warriors forgot their argument for the moment as they shouted at Solas. Then they turned on each other again.

“I thought it went pretty good, yeah?” Sera said, quieter so as to stay out of the argument.

“We have taken the Red Templar's lyrium production from them,” Solas agreed. “Corypheus will find it difficult to control his Red Templars without their supply of red lyrium. But we have not discovered the Inquisitor among the prisoners and we are running low on supplies. I fear we need rest before assaulting Suledin Keep. Yet I also fear what will happen to the Inquisitor if we delay.”

“Then we stop delayin',” Sera said.

“Easier said than done,” Solas said, glancing back at the two warriors.

“Hey, I know. I'll head back real fast and raid the potion stores. By the time I'm back those two will shut up, yeah?”

Solas looked surprised as Sera's offer.

“Don't look so weirded out. I want him back too.” And then she was gone, slipped into shadow like the Inquisitor was wont to do.

Blackwall finally held a hand up to pause Cassandra's rant. “Wait, where'd Sera go?” he asked.

“She's returned to the tower camp for supplies,” Solas said as though it were the most natural event in Thedas. “I expect she'll be back soon and then we can continue. Unless you feel we have more important matters to attend to than rescuing our Inquisitor.”

Cassandra and Blackwall both looked suitably cowed.

“Very well,” Solas said. He hoped Sera would be back soon. He had the sinking feeling that the Inquisitor was running out of time.

*****

Lavellan struggled against the hands but he couldn't move. Hands over his mouth, closing off his nose, there was nothing he could do about the hot liquid in his mouth. It burned like hot tea, stabbed like a thousand tiny thistle-needles...

...tasted like delicate candied rose petals.

It was wrong, all wrong, it shouldn't be like this. He leveled his hateful glare at the Red Templar leader who watched with unabashed glee. Red eyes bored into his as Lavellan's world swam, grew dark around the edges, as the subtle sweetness filled his mind and stole from him his resolve. He wouldn't swallow, he wouldn't, he'd drown first...

A hand at his throat caressed gently, a hot touch softer than any lover. And then...

The sweetness descended, the heat spreading down his throat to his chest and belly. The world came back into focus as the hands let go and he took a deep gasp of air. All the hands let go and he collapsed in the snow, coughing and gasping. He tried to heave, tried to get rid of it, but nothing happened. Instead hands looped under his shoulders and pulled him back up to kneeling.

The Red Templar smiled at him. “That wasn't so bad, was it?” he asked with mocking concern.

“I'll kill you for this,” Lavellan promised.

“Probably,” the Red Templar agreed. “Many of us here would welcome the chance to be free of the pain. And your friends are already within the Keep's walls. But you... You belong to Corypheus now. Bound to the red lyrium until it consumes you.”

Lavellan tried to lunge forward. Hands or no he would make this templar pay for this violation. Anger burned within him, or was it anger? The hands holding him back didn't seem quite so warm anymore.

The Red Templar laughed. “Take the Inquisitor to his cage,” he ordered. “Bind him properly. Let the Inquisition find what we've done here.”

Lavellan screamed in fury, the sound stifled as one of the hands returned to his mouth. Then he was lifted into the air, carried off like a captive maiden to her unsavory fate.

*****

Solas led the way, following the screams he'd heard not long before. The resistance met in Suledin was deceptively sparse, as though the Red Templars knew they were coming and had pulled back to protect something in the middle. Solas feared that something might be the Inquisitor, or what was left of their Inquisitor. The end of those screams did not fill him with confidence.

Sera carried Lavellan's gear, the wyvern-scale armor taken off of a burned body left in a cage, a human body upon examination. The wolf-fur cloak folded in a chest around a trapped flask of fire. The daggers used as off-hand weapons by those Red Templars who still had hands enough to wield them.

Cassandra and Blackwall took fore- and rearguard, eyes scanning the snowbanks, the fallen trees, the pillars of red lyrium crystal for possible ambush.

It was Cassandra who saw the cage first. “There!” she called, pointing with her sword.

The figure in the cage moved, lifting his head and trying to turn towards them.

The cage was small, little bigger than a mabari's crate. The figure within had to sit hunched forward, unable to stretch his legs or sit up, unable to turn around to face his rescuers. The iron bands on his wrists held his hands behind his back and locked those wrists to the side of the cage. Leather mitts covered his hands, balling his fingers into useless fists. The mask over his face fit tightly, strapped around his head to hold the gag in place. But there was no mistaking that posture, those scars, the white silk clothing, the faint green glow that threatened to burn through the mitt covering his left hand.

“I'm on it,” Sera said, slipping into shadows to approach the cage.

Blackwall and Solas scanned the area yet there was no ambush, no Red Templars waiting nearby to attack as they sprung the baited trap. The Inquisitor was simply... left alone? It didn't add up.

Cassandra couldn't hide her growing unease as she approached the cage. Lavellan was bound as the worst maleficarum, hands bound and useless, eyes covered, mouth gagged, caged like an animal for sale. “We'll have you out of there in a moment, Inquisitor,” she said, proud at how little her voice wavered.

Lavellan's masked face turned toward her and he made a noise. It could have been a 'hurry up' or even just an 'I'm here'. It didn't matter to her. He was alive. He looked undamaged. He was safe now.

Sera unlatched the iron bands from the cage wall and got to work on the lock. “We'll have you out of there in a jif,” she promised. “We will, right? We're still safe?”

“Nobody's coming,” Blackwall said, shield and sword still raised just in case. “I don't like this. It's too quiet.”

“There is something else wrong here,” Solas agreed.

Sera opened the cage and Cassandra reached in to pull Lavellan to freedom. She reached up and unhooked the simple latch holding the mask over Lavellan's face. She gasped.

“Hands,” Lavellan rasped. “I need my hands. Have to get rid of it.”

Sera unlocked the iron bands and pulled the leather mitts off. “You're free,” she announced.

Lavellan pulled away from them all and stuffed his fingers down his throat.

“Wait, what's going on?” Sera asked. “They poison you? You seem fine.” Cassandra put her hand on Sera's shoulder as she tried to go to him. “He seems fine!” Sera said again, only going quiet when she saw the dawning horror on Cassandra's face.

Lavellan wiped his mouth, the clear bile before him containing little more than the remains of chewed elfroot. “I was hoping it would be red,” he admitted. If it was red that meant he **could** get rid of it. But now...

Solas approached, his feet barely pressing into the snow. “I have your cloak,” he offered.

Lavellan shook his head as he stood up. The silks he wore should have offered little protection from the oppressive cold but he didn't shiver. “I don't need it,” he said with a strange finality. “Not anymore.”

Solas nodded and drew the wolf-fur cloak over his own shoulders. The wolf's head fell over his own like a hood. “I understand.”

Lavellan took a deep breath and turned blight-red eyes on his companions. “I'm okay,” he said. “Really.”

“See? He's fine,” Sera said stubbornly, as though trying to convince herself. She held out his armor and weapons.

“I'm fine,” Lavellan agreed. He took his stuff and began putting on his armor. “We should keep going. The Red Templars have pulled back to the inner courtyard. They have a demon there that could ruin everything if we don't strike now.”

Cassandra stood straight and nodded. “Yes, Inquisitor,” she said before pulling Blackwall aside.

“I'm not waiting here,” Blackwall said firmly.

Cassandra glanced at the others, at Lavellan suiting up for battle, at Solas watching him from beneath the wolf's fur, at Sera pretending nothing was wrong. “I need someone to return to the forward camp,” she said. “Get a raven to Skyhold. The Inquisitor was dosed with red lyrium.”

That silenced Blackwall's protests. “How can you be sure?” he asked.

“His eyes are red and he's warm to the touch. There's a hum beneath his skin. It's unnerving. He was dosed. If anyone knows what to do they'll be at Skyhold. You're best suited to make it out of here should you meet resistance. Go.”

Blackwall nodded. “Alright,” he agreed. He lifted his shield and sword. “I'll meet you all back at camp,” he called. And then he left.

“Wait, why's he going alone?” Sera demanded.

“Because we're continuing on,” Lavellan said as he buckled the last strap. “I made a promise and I intend to keep it.”

“Promise?” Sera asked.

“There's a Red Templar I promised to kill,” Lavellan said with a wry smile. “You don't want me to disappoint him, do you?”

Sera laughed. “Let's go then.”

*****

The behemoth fell to its knees, or what passed for knees anymore. Dozens of arrow shafts stuck out from the cracks in its crystalline flesh. Patches of frost and spidery stress-cracks marked where Solas' magic attempted to freeze the monster in its rampage. But it was a dagger's tiny blade that felled it, glowing runes giving the silverite the power it needed to pierce red lyrium as hard as any gem.

Lavellan flicked red shards from his blades and sheathed them. That felt good. He resolutely ignored how the monster's hissing voice sounded grateful as it fell. He knew the others didn't hear it. They wouldn't know what he meant if he said anything.

But the others heard this. He turned toward the slow clap of a single applauding figure, the sound only just poisoned by the rustle of armor and the chime of crystal.

Lavellan growled. He knew this Red Templar.

“Good,” the Red Templar praised. He stood flanked by two horrors, monsters who almost looked like deformed men were it not for the nodules of red lyrium growing from their shoulders. They even still had hands, though they preferred their own crystal claws to any forged weapon. “I had hoped to see you again, Inquisitor. Tell me, how do you feel?”

“I **will** kill you,” Lavellan said.

“Glorious, isn't it?” the Red Templar continued. “It's wonderful at first. The strength, the power, it was everything we ever wanted. But it doesn't stop. It never stops. It will consume you, Inquisitor, as it has us all.”

“Enough of this,” Sera said, raising her bow. She aimed and fired, embedding the arrow in the Red Templar's shoulder.

The horrors howled and moved to attack. Yet they were stopped with a gesture, the Red Templar seemingly unconcerned with the arrow in his flesh. He looked at it, at the bright yellow fletching that bounced as he moved, and grinned a rictus grin. He raised his hands, claws glowing red with unnerving power. “Taste your own strength, Inquisitor,” he crowed.

A moment of confusion was all Lavellan got before the burning began. It felt like fire within him, bringing him to his knees as he screamed in agony. He barely noticed his friends leaping to action, Solas trying to disrupt the templar's connection, Sera's bowstring singing as she fired, Cassandra screaming in rage and charging with sword and shield raised.

The slam of shield on armor disrupted the templar's concentration and the pain stopped, changed, flooded through Lavellan with a warmth, a song, a promise. He raised his head to see the templar grab Cassandra's sword in his bare claw, wresting the blade from her grip heedless of the damage to his own flesh.

This ended now.

Lavellan pulled his daggers from their sheaths and growled. The growl shifted, twisting to a shriek of challenge as he charged forward, leaping onto the back of the Red Templar. He stabbed again and again, ignoring the horrors as they tried to pull him off. Ignoring the flash of magic around him as Solas took control of the battlefield.

Ignoring the feeling of a gentle hand trying to pull him off his prey.

But he couldn't ignore the voice.

“Are you quite finished?”

Lavellan looked up, daggers in his hands at the new voice. It was a man, a human mage. He was no Red Templar, he was no templar of any type. He looked almost normal. Unassuming. Wrong.

Cassandra pointed her sword at this newcomer. “Explain yourself, mage,” she commanded.

The man smiled. “You may call me Imshael,” he said. He glanced around, his eyes lingering on the Red Templar corpses. “I see you've been busy.”

“Be careful,” Solas said. “This is no man. He's a demon.”

“I am--” Imshael cut off his own rant with a deep breath and a glare at Solas. “I am a spirit of Choice,” he said. “Desire is common but so few choose to act.” At this he turned to Lavellan, a slow grin spreading across his face. “Like you, Inquisitor. I know what you desire.”

Lavellan flicked the red droplets, the redder crystals from his daggers, and realized he was crouched over the Red Templar's body like an animal defending his kill. He stood up and tried to ignore the wrongness of it.

“Power, riches, virgins, those are common desires,” Imshael explained. “Yours is much more recent. I can give you back yourself.”

“Piss off, he's fine!” Sera shouted.

“You know she's in denial,” Imshael said, slinking closer. “The others think they realize what's happened. But you... You feel it, don't you? It's warm and sweet now, like the rose tea your hahren brews during festivals. It won't stay sweet for long. The shards growing under your skin, the red crystal nodules, lyrium filling your lungs with every gasping breath as your joints freeze and your mind succumbs to the song you already hear. You know what happens next. You know what happens last. Simply being near you will twist them all to madness. I can stop it.”

Lavellan only then realized he had his daggers raised as if to strike. His eyes went wide and he let the blades fall.

“You'll listen,” Imshael said, stating the obvious. He was close enough to touch, one soft hand gently stroking above Lavellan's cheek. Not quite touching, an invitation for Lavellan to accept the touch. He did, pressing into the offered hand, nuzzling it. He didn't want to think about the purring sound he made, it wasn't right.

“It's a start," Imshael murmured, leaning closer, close enough to embrace. "My offer is simple. I take the red lyrium out of you and then I leave. You don't hunt me, you don't find me. Eventually, some years from now, I may come to ask you one favor in return. But then, I might not. I might forget.”

Lavellan glanced past Imshael to his companions. He didn't even have to ask for their opinions, they were already being shouted at him.

“It's a demon!” Sera shouted. “Let's kill it.”

“Choice spirit!” Imshael snarled in protest.

“We will find a way to cure you,” Cassandra promised. It was an empty promise given to the ground as she refused to look at Lavellan.

“It is your choice,” Solas said.

Lavellan looked at each of them in turn and made his choice.

*****

Inquisitor Lavellan looked out over the balcony to the forests of Emprise du Lion below. Suledin Keep belonged to the Inquisition now despite the towering pillars of blighted red lyrium still poisoning the land around it.

Cassandra walked up behind him, her shield strapped to her back. It was unnecessary now, here in their own keep. “We have disrupted Corypheus's red lyrium supply,” she said. “His Red Templars will ration what supply they have left until a new 'mine' can be set up for them. We have limited time in which to strike.”

Lavellan didn't say anything. Yet she knew he was listening to her.

“The Inquisition has tracked Corypheus's interests to the Arbor Wilds,” Cassandra continued. “There is an old elven ruin there. We can have the army ready to march as soon as we return to Skyhold. We'll leave when you're ready.”

Lavellan's attention turned back to the forest below. Red lyrium grew from the bodies of people, sometimes while those people still lived. The Red Templars were living proof. The multitude of pillars, the maze of crystals, the veritable forest of spires below spoke volumes of the Red Templar's cruelty and of the depopulated village on the river below.

Cassandra took a deep breath. “For what it's worth, Inquisitor, I respect your choice,” she said. “I do not know if I could have had the strength to make the choice you did.”

Finally Lavellan turned from the scene below to face her. His blight-red eyes shone with red lyrium's taint. “You underestimate yourself,” he said.

Cassandra winced at the strange reverberating quality his voice had now. She'd never get used to it. And despite all her hopes she knew he'd never be free of it again.

Lavellan watched as she fled then turned back to the red lyrium forest below.

He could hear its song.


	2. Before the Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corypheus is still a threat, even as the messages reach him. The Inquisitor has been captured, force-fed red lyrium. Suledin Keep has fallen. Imshael cannot be found.
> 
> And his army of Red Templars know now. The Inquisitor has a weakness.

“Every garden needs a gardener... Not too fast, not too slow... Just enough...”

Lavellan had been here before. He stood on the highest tower of Suledin Keep. The wind blew cold across the snow, hot from the red lyrium spires that pierced the quarry and littered the castle grounds. Death still reigned, the stench of fresh corpses and fresh demon ash rising as a miasma the wind could not strip.

“The demon promised... he could take the red out... like he promised you... but I would not...”

The templar on the floor before him couldn't move, the crystals growing from his legs too heavy to lift anymore. The glow in his chest spilled from his mouth with every word, a gentle curl of red mist with every breath.

Lavellan knelt down next to the templar, his hand resting on the hilt of the small knife he kept on his belt. Or maybe he should reach behind him for the silverite dagger enchanted with the cleansing rune. Yes, that might end this man's pain quicker, the only mercy he could offer.

And then the scene went wrong. It didn't happen this way. Lavellan didn't find himself pinned to the floor by the templar's armored hands, scratched by crystal claws piercing the steel of fitted gauntlets. But knowing didn't make it any better.

“Cassandra!” Lavellan screamed. But there was no one there. Suledin Keep was empty, nobody here but the templar at his throat and the rising laughter of the Red Templar Lieutenants in the distance.

“Imshael promised us,” the templar hissed, still gasping red mist as the red lyrium ran its course inside him. “He would take our pain. You... would take our pain. Imshael promised us you, Inquisitor. We chose... I chose!”

Fire grew within Lavellan, wrenching a scream from his throat as sharp heat tore through him. The world turned red.

*****

Lavellan woke up.

He sat up, hands reaching out for the templar, for his weapons, for anything. But all he found were furs kicked away from him in the night. The biting cold breeze of the Frostback Mountains blew through an open window even as sunlight streamed through green and blue glass in delicate Dalish patterns. Papers rustled from the floor, his desk in windblown disarray.

A dream. It was a dream, an image of the Fade. Imshael was dead, the Red Templars were crippled without their supply of red lyrium, the march on the Arbor Wilds would begin soon. They were all back in Skyhold to prepare, to gather the army, to avoid thinking or talking about the events of Emprise du Lion.

Lavellan looked around the room. He'd been unable to sleep with clothes on, needed to feel his bed-furs against his skin as he fell asleep. Then he'd kicked all those furs off, leaving him at the mercy of his own forgetfulness, a window left open to the Frostbacks.

And yet despite the glaciers outside, the snow drifting along his balcony and creeping along his bedroom floor, the frozen ink bottle on his desk... He still felt warm. Comfortably warm.

Lavellan threw on pants and a cloak and stormed down the stairs, past the throne room, past advisers and colleagues and visiting human nobles to the Undercroft.

The Undercroft was a marvel in Skyhold. Beneath the castle there opened a cavern that had seen... events. Nobody knew exactly what had gone on here, whether it had been volcanic or magical or worse in nature, but the Undercroft still hummed with residual power. Or perhaps that hum was the massive waterfall of glacial runoff that cascaded directly below them.

The Undercroft was not unoccupied. A small dwarf, small even for a dwarf, stood in front of a table where she had diagrams and research and pages laid out for perusal. Blank runestones held down the parchment in the breeze as she held a mug of something hot and spiced in one hand. She blew on it and sipped before placing it on the table in the middle of a hundred other mug-rings stained in the wood.

“Dagna,” Lavellan called.

Dagna looked over and smiled. “Good morning, Inquisitor,” she said. “Aren't you cold?”

Lavellan looked down at himself. He had pants, that was more than he'd slept in, though they were rather thin. And the cloak was... less than ideal for cold weather, a silken thing meant for meeting visiting dignitaries. Nothing like the thick wool and leathers Dagna wore. “I should be,” he admitted. “I should go.”

“Wait, wait.” A look of curious wonder blossomed on her face as she got a good look at him. “They told me you were exposed. To the red lyrium. They didn't tell me there were effects.”

Lavellan realized he'd made a mistake. He distinctly remembered Dagna asking if she could have a piece of his flesh to run experiments on after he escaped the Fade the second time. This time his advisers had cause to allow it. “Dagna...”

Dagna grinned, that eerie grin she got when about to discover something. There was no way she could move as fast as she did. That was Lavellan's excuse for why he found himself sitting on the steps so she could finally look him in the eye. “Remarkable,” she said as she looked into one eye then the other.

Lavellen pulled away and glared at her. He knew the red lyrium's taint showed itself through his blight-red eyes. He was reminded of it every time somebody gasped and looked away quickly, never willing to meet his eyes again after that.

“Let me get some things, stay right there, Inquisitor,” Dagna said and darted off to her worktables.

“You're not taking anything,” Lavellan warned.

“No no, not yet anyway,” Dagna said as she rummaged. She found what she was looking for, a large jeweler's lens. It was built for an elf but the lens broke long ago and she'd never gotten it replaced. Now the blank cylinder would come in useful and not just for keeping runes contained. She looked through it at the Inquisitor to ease some of his tension and came back. Then she held the cylinder over one eye and looked in through the other end.

Lavellan knew what this was and sighed. One of her early hypotheses involved the color of elven eyeshine and magic. To be fair, the realization that city elves had fainter eyeshine than the Dalish was interesting. Still didn't explain Solas though.

“Your eyes are red,” Dagna announced.

Lavellan pulled away and gave her a dull look. “I know.”

“That too,” Dagna agreed. “I saw mining caste dwarves with eyes like yours. Too much time in tapped-out lyrium mines. No light at all, no way to find your way around except by touch. Then they got used to it and the lights of Orzammar got too bright. Even darkspawn fires were so bright to be painful. But you don't look like you're in pain. Maybe it's all the red.”

Lavellan wondered when she would make sense. Sometimes she sounded like Cole, words and thoughts and ideas all merging and melding into one incoherent sentence. “Dagna, I need to ask you something. It's important.”

“Of course.”

Lavellan took a deep breath. “We know red lyrium exposure is dangerous. It kills people. It grows from them, sometimes while they're still alive.”

Dagna smiled sweetly. “Can I have a piece when that happens? I can run experiments on that. I'm sure you won't miss it.”

“Yes, Dagna.” Lavellan resolutely didn't think about what he'd agreed to or how disturbingly happy that seemed to make her. “But I'd rather it didn't get that far. We know so little about red lyrium.”

“We don't know a whole lot about regular lyrium either.”

“What do you need to fix that?”

“To research red lyrium?” Dagna thought for a moment, a rare moment of seriousness. “Time. Resources. A sample of red lyrium, maybe several from different locations. But mostly time and resources. And permission.”

“I want you to be safe about it,” Lavellan warned. “Nobody else needs to end up like me.”

“I can be safe. Breathing it would be the real danger. Need to pulverize it in a medium. Like any lyrium processing. And no getting the processed stuff on my hands. Don't want to absorb it. How fast does it absorb?”

“Quickly,” Lavellan admitted. “Less than an hour it was all...” He looked down, not wanting to remember the delicate bittersweet spice. A chill finally hit him, drawing his arms around himself as he shuddered with something he refused to admit was _want_.

“If only we had more opportunities,” Dagna mused. “I wonder if the Red Templars left notes about the process.”

Lavellan stood up. Occasionally he realized why so many people feared Dagna and what she could do. “You'll have your resources,” he said. “And your red lyrium. But time is less certain.”

“Keep me updated,” Dagna said. “About everything.” She grinned, a hungry grin that promised knowledge at any cost, horribly obtained and cheerfully presented.

“Of course.” Lavellan fled the Undercroft, leaning against the door. There were demons who could learn something from that one little dwarf in there. He'd agreed to something. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what.

*****

Lavellan found them in the loft over the blacksmith's forge. He had no idea why Cassandra preferred this place to the War Council or why Cullen allowed meetings here. The misshapen candles sitting in wads on the table, softened by the heat from below, attested to why this place was non-ideal.

The table between Cullen and Cassandra held a map with pins in it, pins denoting troop movements around Skyhold and the Dales. Several softened candles burned in tallow piles, molten wax dripping in streams to puddle on the floor. A knife stabbed through the parchment denoted the Emprise du Lion.

“We should march as soon as possible,” Cassandra insisted. “We do not know how long the Inquisitor has left!”

“I will not throw our armies unprepared against Samson and his Red Templars,” Cullen said. “There's a chance we can breach his lyrium armor, I would--”

“We do not have time for 'chances'! If I had...”

“Cassandra, it's not your fault.”

Lavellan realized neither of them saw him. Despite his station as Inquisitor he was still an elf and elves were at best ignored by the humans of Thedas. He scowled, leaned nonchalantly against a pillar, and then cleared his throat.

Cullen and Cassandra both jumped and turned toward him. Cullen recovered first, standing at attention. “Inquisitor,” he greeted.

“How long were you...” Cassandra cleared her throat and resolutely didn't look at Lavellan even as he stared right at her.

“Long enough,” Lavellan said, voice carefully neutral. “Am I to understand you would have us invade the Arbor Wilds unprepared?”

“Not unprepared,” Cassandra said. “We have an opportunity to strike before...”

“Before the red lyrium kills me,” Lavellan said dully. He added some weight to his stare. She refused to look at him, instead focusing her eyes on the map, the floor, anywhere else.

“I would not throw the army into battle unprepared,” Cullen said. “Leliana went over the notes you found in the quarry at Emprise du Lion. I believe we could use them to find a weakness in Samson's lyrium armor.”

“The army is unlikely to meet Samson in combat,” Cassandra said.

“But I am,” Lavellan said. And then a chill rolled through him despite the forge below as he realized. “Cassandra...”

Cassandra finally looked at him. Sort of. She still didn't meet his eyes. “A death on the battlefield is preferable to the slow corruption of red lyrium,” she said. “Corypheus will be stopped. If the opportunity arises to...”

“No,” Lavellan said.

“But--”

“I said no,” Lavellan said. Then he turned from her. “What did Leliana find?”

“The notes seem to imply Samson's armor is laced with red lyrium,” Cullen explained. “He uses it to enhance his strength far beyond anything a mortal man should be capable of. I imagine the effects are not dissimilar to what happened to you in Suledin Keep, Inquisitor.” He looked away and cleared his throat before turning back to look Lavellan straight in the eye. “Though I imagine Samson is tapping into his strength on purpose.”

Memory assaulted Lavellan, the feel of heat and the sound of the song in his ears. If he listened he could still hear it, could still feel that warmth flooding his chest with the power that was slowly killing him. He glanced down at the Mark on his left hand, the faint green glow pulsing even here. Death by red lyrium was no less certain than death by the Mark. What did it matter, then, which killed him first? “If what I experienced was nothing but a fraction of the power Samson wields, we have to break him,” he said. “We have to break that power or he will break us all like twigs.”

“Yes, Inquisitor,” Cullen said.

“Dagna already has permission to research red lyrium to her curiosity's content. Speak with her about it.”

“Yes, Inquisitor.” Cullen bowed, spared a glare at Cassandra, then left.

Cassandra turned to leave.

“Not you, Cassandra,” Lavellan said. “We need to talk.”

Cassandra took a deep breath and turned back to the Inquisitor. She still wouldn't look at him.

“Why do you want me dead?” Lavellan asked. “I might understand it if you'd mentioned this before. When we met you threatened to have me executed often enough.”

Cassandra winced. “If you'll recall, I had cause.”

“I remember.” Lavellan slowly paced the loft, hands behind his back. “I walked out of the Fade and Divine Justinia did not. The Conclave was destroyed, I the only survivor. Of course you thought I'd done it. Even though I'm 'just an elf'.”

Cassandra winced at the early Inquisition's words thrown back at her. The Inquisitor wasn't 'just' anything, especially not now. He'd freed the rebel mages, subsumed the Grey Wardens under the Inquisition banner, placed an elf behind the throne of Orlais and forced Emperor Gaspard to accept Briala's rule. He'd survived the destruction of Haven, broken the Red Templar's supply lines, and freed the Dales of demon control. And now, it could be argued he'd become more than even that. Or less, depending on who one asked. The red eyes and the faint red blush to his skin were impossible to hide, marks of his strange blighted nature.

“I wanted to give you a hero's death,” Cassandra allowed. “If you died to defeat Corypheus you would be spared the indignities of this... blight.”

“And I get no say in this?”

“I thought you would agree,” Cassandra continued. “You've fought the ghouls who serve the darkspawn. You've seen shrieks with your own eyes. Worse, we've all fought Red Templars in all their stages of corruption. I would spare you any of those fates. Especially since...”

“Since?”

Cassandra took a deep breath. “If I had been faster you would not have been captured,” she said. “You would not be...” She couldn't continue, instead staring down at the floor as she fought the urge to cry.

Lavellan cocked his head then approached. She flinched at his touch, only for a moment, and then allowed him to pull her into an embrace. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed, burying her face in his shoulder. He held her, rubbing her back as though she might feel it beneath her breastplate. They stayed like that until she relaxed and pulled away, finally looking him in the eye.

“I don't need a hero's death,” Lavellan said. “But thank you. For trying.” He smiled as she laughed, the both of them ignoring how that laugh turned to a sob.

The march on the Arbor Wilds would wait.


	3. Shrine of Dumat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maddox
> 
> The Inquisition is coming. They've found our operation. My Red Templars will slow them down while you destroy anything you think they might find useful. Once that's done, get out of there. Keep yourself safe.
> 
> I will see you again, my friend.
> 
> Samson

The Shrine of Dumat loomed in the distance, the ruins recently cleared by Venatori for their Elder One, Corypheus. Inquisition scouts lurked around the area to mark patrols, to determine the enemy's strength, to find any sign that Samson was still here.

Red Templars patrolled the courtyard in groups of threes, two corrupted horrors and one armored Lieutenant to bolster them. Red lyrium grew in spires in the courtyard but it was otherwise straightforward. There was no cover under which to lurk, no shadows to hide them. If they were to enter the Shrine it would be a full frontal assault.

It would have to be soon. Smoke began to rise from the inner temple.

Inquisitor Lavellan stood with arms crossed and scowled as Cassandra, Cullen, Varric, and Dorian stormed the courtyard without him. It was decided he should stay out of the battle until the courtyard could be taken.

“Don't feel too glum about it, Inquisitor,” Scout Harding said from where she sat on a rock wall. “We have a great view.”

Lavellan looked at the dwarven scout, her perch the only thing that allowed him to look at her instead of down at her. “You do this often?” he asked.

“Now and then,” she said. “I sometimes follow you and your group once our camp's set up.”

“Any favorite battles?”

Harding grinned. “The dragon in the Hinterlands,” she said. “Why do you think people called it the 'Fereldan Frostback' when it breathed fire?”

“I have no idea why humans do anything,” Lavellan said.

“Fair enough.” Harding looked back at the courtyard and went still. She climbed on the rock wall, pulling her bow. “Inquisitor...”

Lavellan followed her gaze and immediately pulled a smoke grenade from his belt. He faded from view into the shadows he brought with him, pulling his daggers as he ran into the courtyard.

The assault was not going well. The doors to the Shrine were thrown open and a behemoth stood there, its one gigantic arm swinging wildly. Cassandra already lay on the ground where she'd been thrown, she weakly reached for her shield before her strength failed her. Varric shouted obscenities as Bianca's strings sang with a song as inspiring as any bard's. Dorian blasted fire at the Red Templar Lieutenant that bore down on him, claws raised for the killing blow.

The blow never fell. The Lieutenant roared in pain as Lavellan's shadows fell away, his daggers sunk to the hilt into the templar's back.

“Good timing!” Dorian shouted.

The Lieutenant reached around and grabbed Lavellan around the neck. It seemed to pause there as a horrid grin spread across its lip-less, deformed mouth. It threw Lavellan to the ground, not caring that the Inquisitor twisted in the air to land on his feet. He crouched to spring back into the fray, daggers raised to strike with twin fangs. Instead the Red Templar raised one claw filled with sickly red light.

Lavellan fell to his knees as the red lyrium in his veins _sang_ with a horrible searing dissonant pain. Too many voices all whispering at once, all of them vying for his attention, none of them making sense, filling his mind...

“Vishante kaffas...” Dorian swore. “Inquisitor!”

Lavellan vaguely heard Dorian, heard words almost lost in the red lyrium's song. He looked up, arms wrapped around his burning chest, and saw...

The song faltered as Dorian slammed the head of his staff into the Lieutenant's half-fused helmet. It was enough for Lavellan to feel the daggers in his hands. Red crept in on his vision and the Lieutenant...

It needed to die.

Lavellan shrieked and sprang.

*****

Dorian slammed the head of his staff into the Red Templar, trying to get its attention. Anything to release the Inquisitor from whatever torture was being inflicted upon him.

It worked and the Lieutenant began to turn toward him, claws raised and teeth bared. Dorian tried to summon power through his staff but the head was fractured, the fire sputtered. He looked up at what would surely be his death.

And then he heard the scream. Or maybe it was a shriek. Whatever it was it was bad.

The Lieutenant roared in fury as something leapt on it from behind. This thing, this elf, Lavellan? It looked like Lavellan but he fought like a madman, like a darkspawn, like something mindless reveling in the kill. It _dismantled_ the templar, howling in glee as the body fell. And then it turned red eyes on Dorian.

“Inquisitor?” Dorian asked, fear overtaking better judgment. He was too terrified to run.

Lavellan made a sound that could only be described as a purr as he crept close to Dorian, slinking like a cat about to strike. Then one pointed ear flicked in the direction of the carnage across the battlefield, at Varric's repeated “shit shit Shit SHIT SHIT!” Lavellan pulled away from Dorian and bared bloodied teeth in a feral challenge. Then he was gone, bounding off toward the fighting like a charging animal.

Dorian fell to his knees. The Red Templar Lieutenant lay dead before him, his staff nearly useless. And their Inquisitor had gone mad.

*****

Lavellan raced toward the battle, daggers in hand, eerily silent. He fell beneath shadows, the smoke that billowed from the burning temple shielding him from view. Cullen fought like a man possessed; he was once a Templar and these could easily have been his former comrades. Varric fired into the melee, Bianca's crossbow bolts bouncing fruitlessly off of the behemoth's crystalline flesh. Lavellan ignored them both, focused on the monster of living crystal that swung its giant mace-like arm with abandon. He ducked beneath the swing and slid between its legs to slice both daggers into one ankle. The foot snapped off, crystal shards flying and the behemoth staggered, balancing awkwardly on mismatched legs.

And now it knew where he was. It punched down and he rolled, not even bothering to stand before he sprang again.

“Keep it busy, Curly!” Varric shouted.

Cullen wasn't sure he needed to as he kept his shield raised. Still he watched as the behemoth roared and flailed at the tiny elven thing that swung from two dagger hilts embedded in its back. Lavellan stabbed again and again, climbing the behemoth like a mountain until the thing fell and was finally still.

“Inquisitor,” Cullen greeted. Yet he had a bad feeling about this. There was something unnerving in the way Lavellan moved. “Are you--”

Lavellan's head snapped up to look at him and Cullen knew. He raised his sword and shield to defend himself in case it came to that. Instead Lavellan growled and bolted into the temple.

The temple currently on fire.

“What was that?” Varric asked as he approached, Bianca strapped to his back.

“I have an idea,” Cullen said. He looked back to see Dorian at Cassandra's side, at Cassandra kneeling with one hand to her head and a potion in her hand. She'd be all right, he hoped. They'd all need to be at their best if he was right.

“Dorian tells me the Inquisitor is involved,” Cassandra said as she got to her feet. She lifted her shield and picked up her sword. “Where is he?”

Cullen gestured to the temple and the faint shriek from within. “I believe he's in frenzy, or whatever we're calling it.”

Cassandra gasped. “We have to stop him!” she shouted as she raised her weapon and ran up the steps into the temple.

Cullen sighed.

“If it's any comfort, the Inquisitor had the chance to kill me,” Dorian said. “He didn't.”

“Still not good,” Varric said, pulling Bianca down from her harness. He cocked the crossbow, fitting the first bolt into her strings, and they all went inside.

*****

Fire. Heat. Red upon red upon red, pillars of red lyrium all singing, shouting, calling in a way no one else could hear. The heat made it louder, stole any harmony it might have had.

Red Templars fell to hungry blades poisoned with blood. Lavellan ran through the temple to the middle of it, some semblance of sanity told him there had to be an altar here. The altar was where these humans always conducted their ceremonies. The vague image of a woman in shapeless white robes covered in gold and red flashed across his mind, he remembered feeling bored and vaguely insulted. Then it was gone and he heard something.

Something that wasn't a Red Templar.

It was a man. It was still a man, nothing more. No crystals grew from his flesh, no song sang in his mind. Nothing sang there, not even emotion as the brand on his forehead marked him as Tranquil.

Lavellan approached, falling to all fours to better meet this man's eyes. The man sat on the floor surrounded by flame, by his own dark blue robes, by a dozen little bottles that smelled like death. Lavellan crawled, crouched, crept up and sniffed questioningly. No fear, no nothing, no--

Lavellan went still, stiff, cold. He moaned aloud as a frission of magic shivered up his spine to encase him. The song faded and he shuddered and shivered, unable to move. Frozen in magic ice.

Dorian gasped from exertion, his damaged staff spitting strange multicolored sparks. “That's hard to do with a damaged staff,” he warned. “Dagna's crafting me a new one when we get back to Skyhold. Something in volcanic aurum, I think.”

“Maddox!” Cullen shouted and ran up to kneel down next to the man, the Tranquil.

“Knight-Commander Cullen,” Maddox said in his dull emotionless way. “I did not know it would be you.”

“Are you all right?” Cullen demanded. “What happened here? Are you hurt?”

“I set fire to the temple,” Maddox said. “I could not allow this place, its information, or my knowledge to fall into Inquisition hands. Thus I have taken my entire stock of blightcap poison.”

“That... sounds painful,” Varric said.

“It was at first,” Maddox agreed. “But now I do not feel it.”

“Maddox...” Cullen paced in distress. He knew Maddox once, same as he knew Samson once, the both of them destroyed by the system that nearly took him. It didn't seem fair that he would escape while everyone else... “Why?” he demanded. “Why do this? For Samson? For this 'Elder One'? Why do it?”

“The Chantry abandoned us all,” Maddox said as though it were obvious fact. And perhaps it was. “Samson sought to give the Templars a purpose before the lyrium took them. A future to work towards. Meaning. He gave me meaning again.”

The ice cracked around Lavellan but the frenzy was already gone. He shook ice off of him and crouched on the floor next to Maddox. He glanced at the others and slid his daggers back into their sheaths.

“Is there nothing we can do?” Cassandra asked.

Lavellan looked at her and shook his head. He used blightcap on his blades, he knew what it did.

“When you face him, tell Samson I was content,” Maddox said. “I would follow him again.” He slumped down and was still.

Lavellan stood up and ignored Cassandra's sword pointed at him. “We should look around,” he said, voice scratchy with an eerie vibration. “This place is stone, there isn't much here that can burn. I'm sure there's something useful the fire didn't touch.”

“Yes, Inquisitor,” Cullen said as he moved off through the smoldering ruins.

Dorian and Varric started picking through the rubble, Varric lamenting Dorian's busted staff leaving Dorian unable to simply control the fire into snuffing out. Dorian ignored him, muttering under his breath in Tevene. Varric pretended it was nothing but swearing, that made it easier.

Lavellan shook off the last of the ice even as it melted and ran down the back of his wyvern-scale armor. The cold grounded him as he looked around at the pillars and spires of red lyrium. They still sang, their songs discordant and loud in the heat of the fire. One big pillar stood where the altar must have been. It struck him that it might have grown from the body of a sacrifice. Lavellan shivered as he approached it. Its song was loudest, shouted over the din of the others. He could almost make out words, if he concentrated he might be able to hear who this once was. He pulled off one leather glove and reached out with a bare hand to touch it.

Fingertips stopped just before the red surface as someone gripped his wrist. His fingers tingled with need, the need to feel to _belong_. And then the feeling was ripped from him as Cassandra yanked him away from the crystal and finally looked into his eyes.

He looked worse. The red glow around his eyes had spread, infecting his vallaslin. The branches of Mythal's markings spread like veins across his cheeks and down his chin. His tanned skin seemed dusky next to the red glow. But despite all the red he still seemed strong, determined. And he had his mind back. For now.

“You should not touch it,” Cassandra said, not letting him go.

“I can hear it,” Lavellan said, his gaze falling back to the red crystal. His voice grew far away, clouded by longing. “It's singing to me. I should--”

“That is why you should not touch it,” Cassandra said, cutting him off. “Especially you.”

Lavellan tried to pull out of her grip but her gauntleted hand felt like iron. He scowled and felt an animal growl beneath his breath. He tamped it down and instead went with quiet indignance.

She let him go. He looked at the crystal and closed his eyes, listening to the song as it pulled at the lyrium in his blood. But he wouldn't fall for it. Not today. Not here. He slid his glove back over his hungry fingers and turned away.

They were here for a reason.

*****

Scout Harding still sat on her rock wall when the Inquisitor and his team walked out of the Shrine of Dumat. Her bow was in hand, the single Red Templar who escaped the Shrine lay dead at the foot of her wall. Its peppering of arrows spoke of how she took it down before it could rampage through the camp. Her pride at her kill faltered when she saw the others. “How was it?” she asked.

Dorian carried a fractured staff that sparked in all sorts of wrong ways. He seemed haunted, there was something wrong. It took her a moment to realize it was the blood on his silken robes, he usually magicked it all away before returning to camp.

Varric wasn't much better. He was quiet, that was even weirder than Dorian looking mussed. What had happened in there?

Cullen came next, his sword at his belt and his shield strapped to his back. His arms were full of lyrium-forging tools wrapped in the hide of some animal.

Cassandra carried something that might be books or papers or parchment scrolls carefully wrapped in silks. Yet she kept one hand on her sword hilt and her gaze was wary, like she was waiting for something to go wrong.

Lavellan followed them all and Scout Harding gasped. Sure he'd looked bad before, the red eyes were unmistakable. But he wasn't supposed to _glow_ like that.

No one should glow like that.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Don't ask,” Varric said. “You don't want to know.”

Scout Harding believed him.


	4. What Pride Had Wrought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inquisition forces dog us at every opportunity. Not last night we found the entire forward camp set aflame. Frenzy took the forward scouts. While those who survived to become behemoths are welcome assets, the incident slows down our march.
> 
> Double the watches on each camp but do not resist your own frenzy. The more of us who give in to the transformation, the fewer of us need sleep and the faster we will march.
> 
> The Elder One requires the Temple of Mythal. We cannot allow the Inquisition to take the prize for themselves.
> 
> Samson

The Undercroft hummed with activity as Dagna took to her new research materials as she would a puzzle, nothing more difficult than that. The disturbing calls for more red lyrium for 'testing' peaked three days after their return to Skyhold. In the meantime Leliana's birds flew messages to scouts in the field, small teams of spies slowing the Red Templar advance while Josephine called in favors and alliances to bring soldiers from Fereldan and Orlais to join in the march.

The approach on the Arbor Wilds had begun even as the Inquisitor and his inner circle prepared the last few details here at Skyhold. They would march with the Inquisition army upon the morning.

Until then, Skyhold felt empty.

Lavellan leaned on Cullen's desk while Cullen paced and Cassandra wrung her hands. He watched them, wondering when they both decided they had the right to worry so much about him.

Then he remembered.

“The Red Templars won't have the time to set up any sort of lyrium processing,” Lavellan said. “There won't **be** red lyrium to affect me.”

“Do not pretend,” Cassandra said. “I have seen a Red Templar affect you without needing red lyrium. It is a quality they possess on their own regardless of their surroundings.”

Lavellan ignored her. He wasn't going to be left behind and that was final. What purpose was the Inquisitor if the Inquisition was forced into battle without its leader? The so-called armies of the 'faithful' weren't so blind that they'd miss that.

“Cassandra,” Cullen said. He sighed and couldn't continue, one hand rubbing the back of his neck as he thought.

“Commander,” Cassandra countered.

“Whatever happened to giving me a hero's death?” Lavellan asked, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “Or did my refusal relegate me to being cloistered for my own protection?”

“I...”

“There has to be some middle ground between throwing the Inquisitor to the Red Templars and keeping him out of the battle entirely,” Cullen said.

“I can tell friend from foe,” Lavellan said. “I admit, I may not have full control over my actions when it's happening but I remember everything once it's over. I remember Dorian, broken staff in hand, stinking of fear. I wouldn't have attacked him. I knew him. Even then I knew him.”

“Can you say the same about our allies?” Cassandra demanded. “Even our soldiers? Can they say the same of you? You are a monster like that, you realize.”

“I look no different.”

“Eyes red, aflame, fierce, feral, focused. Blank. Doesn't recognize me. He howls, snarls, shrieks, Shriek. Maker, he took the templar apart with his bare hands...”

Lavellan glanced up to see Cole lurking in the shadows, perched on a rafter like a roosting bird. Cassandra shuddered at the boy, the spirit, at whatever Cole was effortlessly reaching out to touch her thoughts.

“I am no darkspawn,” Lavellan said firmly.

“I never said you were,” Cassandra said.

Lavellan let his eyes linger above before focusing them on Cassandra. She dared him to contradict her even as her thoughts rang bare and open.

“I... can see the advantage of such power,” Cullen admitted. “Carefully controlled, of course.”

“You can't be serious,” Cassandra insisted. “You saw him! You saw what he can do like that!”

“I did,” Cullen said. “I saw what he did to the Red Templars at the Shrine of Dumat. I also saw how a single ice spell stopped his frenzy completely.”

“I don't have the lead the army,” Lavellan offered. “That's your job, Commander. I could take a small group ahead to the Temple of Mythal while the rest of the army engages the Red Templars in direct combat. With any luck we can make it to the Temple before the Red Templars know I'm there.”

“It's too risky,” Cassandra said. “If you frenzy...”

“I'll bring Dorian and Solas with me,” Lavellan said. “I should bring Solas anyway, I expect he'll be more knowledgeable about what we'll find inside than Morrigan.”

“And leave the army without magical support?” Cassandra asked.

“The army will make do with our mage allies,” Cullen said. “Perhaps Madame du Fer will consent to aiding us.”

“Sound, sighs, singing, the Song!” Cole gasped as he realized and looked down, pale blue eyes boring into Lavellan's red. “Cold doesn't quiet it, it _harmonizes_ it, turns the whispers pretty. When it's pretty it's mine, mine, me, my own voice, I'm still me, the cold keeps me _me_.”

“That's unnerving, Cole,” Lavellan called into the rafters.

“That's why you sleep with the windows open and the furs at your feet!” Cole kicked at the rafters, pleased with his revelation. “When the Song is you and yours it can't follow you into the Fade.”

Lavellan sighed as the door opened. Dagna bounced happily at the threshold before announcing her success. She had found a way to break Samson's armor. All it would take was one little rune to disrupt the red lyrium folded into the steel.

A rune Cassandra would carry. Dagna was quite interested in how the rune burned Lavellan when he tried to touch it.

He left them all there in Cullen's office, Cole crowing in the rafters and Cassandra still trying to determine what was 'best' for him. Even Dagna's calculating grin disturbed him. But worst of all was Cullen's _understanding_.

*****

Skyhold's garden was empty at this time of night. All sane members of the Inquisition were likely asleep, their dreams roaming the Fade, or otherwise preparing for tomorrow's march. The Inquisition's fastest horses were groomed and well fed, the horse master sleeping in the stables with them to keep them calm and ready for the long road ahead. Beds around Skyhold held the weary and the wary and the occasional last-minute tryst.

Lavellan was not among them. He descended his lonely tower dressed in soft greens and browns, the better to blend in with the garden in case anyone saw him.

The gazebo in the corner was empty. Mother Giselle would not be there to give her sermons at this time of night, nor would he be expected to attend out of some misguided attempt to make him seem 'civilized' for the nobility. The door to the small chapel stood ajar, the cold mountain wind toying with the multitude of candles lit at Andraste's stone feet. Leaves rustled, brushing away any sound that might give him away, or any sound of an unwelcome observer. A light dusting of snow colored the grass, just enough to track footprints.

He was alone.

Lavellan took a deep breath of cold sweet air and felt the warmth in him respond, filling him with the aftertaste of sweet bitter roses. He could almost see the red mist on his breath as he exhaled.

It didn't matter. Soon Corypheus would be dead, his army broken, and then he could figure out what to do next about the Anchor and the red lyrium, the two magical forces beyond all control seeking to kill him from the inside.

But first there was something he had to do.

Lavellan sought out the waist-high cairn of rocks tucked behind a convenient shrub. Out of the way of prying Chantry eyes, visible only to those who truly looked for it, it was the only concession he could wrest from the Inquisition toward matters of his own faith.

It was enough.

Lavellan knelt before the cairn, letting the shrubbery's embrace hide him from view. The stones of the cairn were stained red with blood, somebody's idea of a heathen insult. It seemed fitting now.

So much of the language was lost when the Tevinter Imperium invaded Arlathan, lost again when the Chantry invaded the Dales. But he was Dalish, his clan clung to what they knew with a ferocity that rivaled Corypheus. He knew enough for this. He began to sing.

_Melava inan enansal_  
_ir su aravel tu elvaral_  
_u na emma abelas_  
_in elgar sa vir mana_  
_in tu setheneran din emma na_

_Lath sulevin_  
_lath araval ena_  
_arla ven tu vir mahvir_  
_melana'nehn_  
_enasal ir sa lethalin_

It was a song about all the elves had lost, about the paths of the past lost and gone. But there was hope there, that a path to the future still existed. The elves endured as they had for thousands of years and they would continue to endure. Lavellan would endure. A path through this war existed, all he had to do was find it.

And then he heard it. A rustle outside, not of leaves but of cloth. Footsteps. Lavellan watched with red eyes that seemed to glow in the moonlight as the figure in white gave up her shadows and stepped into the open.

Lavellan did not get up. “Mother Giselle,” he greeted, voice carefully neutral.

Mother Giselle inclined her head though he couldn't read her expression. The Chantry Mother was never not enigmatic, whether in attempting to dismiss the Exalted Marches against his people with a disparaging statement to their legality or a veiled defense of her own Chantry's teachings of hate.

Lavellan still wasn't sure if he liked her or not. At this moment he leaned toward not.

“I am pleased to see you are a man of faith,” Mother Giselle said. “It is more comforting than you know.”

Lavellan snorted. “Even if I spare none of it for your 'Maker'?”

“I am of the opinion that the elven gods are aspects of the Maker.”

That brought Lavellan around to face her, though he remained on his knees. “Consider the timing, Mother Giselle,” he said. He couldn't help the mocking anger in his voice. “The elvhen worshiped the Creators until they turned from us many millennia ago. Andraste's 'cult of the Maker' didn't appear until, what, a mere thousand years ago? If anything, your Maker is a pitiful human attempt to understand our gods. It wouldn't be the first thing you stole from us; magic, culture, hygiene, even Mythal's dragons became Tevinter's Old Gods. And you expect me to accept your voiceless Maker as greater than the basis of your everything.”

Mother Giselle stood aghast at his words. Perhaps it was the upcoming battle or the distinct lack of onlookers. It might even have been the red lyrium in his veins that caused him to speak such blasphemies against the Chantry as it had been for centuries.

But it wasn't blasphemy against Andraste's words. Or even against the Chantry as it used to be, once long ago. Before the Dales were forcibly taken.

She marshaled her shock and instead bowed to Lavellan. “I apologize,” she said. “I suppose I might have seemed less than understanding before.”

Now Lavellan knelt in shock. This Chantry Mother wasn't going to argue? She... accepted his words? Of course her Chantry would never accept them but at the moment that didn't matter.

“I will leave if you wish to continue,” Mother Giselle said.

'You... don't have to,” Lavellan allowed. “I'm nearly finished.”

Mother Giselle bowed again, leaning against a low stone wall far enough to be unobtrusive but close enough to hear.

Lavellan turned back toward the cairn. He hadn't done this with an audience for ages, not since leaving his clan. He breathed deep to clear his mind and unwrapped the glass halla figurines he'd kept from his various exploits in the field. He laid them out at the base of the stones, an offering to the Creators to show his seriousness. He spoke in the common tongue because he no longer knew the proper elvhen words to invoke the god of vengeance.

_Elgar'nan, Wrath and Thunder, give us glory_  
_Give us victory over the enemy that shakes our cities_  
_that splits the sky, that clamors for undeserved godhood_  
_Strike the usurper with Your lightning_  
_Burn the ground under Your gaze_  
_Bring Winged Death against those who would stand against us_

Lavellan felt drained. He usually whispered his prayers under his breath, the only way he felt he could get away with them here surrounded by the human Chantry. But here, now, on the eve of battle, even with a Mother of that Chantry watching him, he felt safe enough to call his prayers to the sky.

Unfortunately it was still night. Elgar'nan's father was the sun and would take his prayers to the Fade for Elgar'nan to hear. Even if the gods were locked away and couldn't answer they still might hear. Sometimes that was enough.

He pulled himself to his feet and allowed the shrubs to hide the cairn from view once again.

“I thought you might add more blood to the stones,” Mother Giselle said, her voice carefully neutral.

Lavellan shook his head. “That's not my blood,” he said. The stones were stained red and brown with crusted blood. But it wasn't his idea. “Never has been. Some shemlen thought it would be a good laugh, I think. But I haven't had the time or the privacy to clean it off.”

He left as Mother Giselle looked in shock at the bloodied stones. Shock then turned to contemplation.

*****

Hooves pounded down the pass from Skyhold down to the Dales and then south to the Arbor Wilds. The stables stood empty, the barracks, the towers, the tavern, even the frozen river below the castle stood quiet and bereft.

The army rode on to its fate, Lavellan at the head on his great striped stag.

But Skyhold was not empty, not entirely. A few of the faithful remained to keep the castle ready for the Inquisitor's awaited return. Dagna sequestered herself in the Undercroft for 'impossible research'. Cabot the bartender sampled his own wares in peace while Maryden strummed her lute and attempted to compose a song for the Inquisitor's success. Herbalists tended the Skyhold garden without the constant interruptions of clerics and Chantry faithful getting in the way.

Mother Giselle waited until the elven herbalists wiped the dirt from their hands and meandered off to the tavern for the night. Then she lifted her tools, a bucket of soapy water and a brush for scrubbing. She knelt before a simple cairn of stones, bloodied and befouled by humans who hid their hate behind the Chantry's teachings. She dipped the brush in the bucket.

She had work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to the Dragon Age wiki for all the elven I will ultimately use mercilessly.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [tumblr](http://nebulousmistress.tumblr.com/) where you can find a hundred little fanfics I never posted here. Check it out, drop a line, maybe dare me to write something for you.


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